Baltimore Ravens QB Joe Flacco’s appearance on “Monday Night Live” with teammate Brendon Ayanbadejo, Glenn Clark, Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones has been of great interest around the country. The interview has appeared at ESPN, NFL Network, NFL.com, SI, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Comcast SportsNet and countless other places around the internet and other forms of multi-media.

Heck, even a certain FM sports talk station in Charm City referenced the interview on-air and online, although they wouldn’t mention where it came from.

The opinions of Flacco’s comments have varied from analyst to analyst, fan to fan and even from WNST contributor to WNST contributor.

So here is the transcription of some of Flacco’s more interesting answers from Monday’s show at Hightopps Backstage Grille in Timonium. You can hear the segment in question here.

(Thanks to our friends at SportsRadioInterviews.com…)

On fans reacting and sometimes overacting to wins and losses:

“Yeah it’s pretty hilarious. I mean everyone reacts week to week and I mean most people really have no idea what really went on in the game and how everybody played and what was supposed to be happening. I can look at an NFL game and say ‘hey this is what I thought should have happened’ but I can be way off base because I don’t know what they game planned for the week and things like that. It’s funny to see all these things. I mean look at Tim Tebow. I like Tim, but you have a tendency to want to, I don’t want to see Tim do bad, but look what happens after he wins a football game. If you watched Sportscenter today it was Tim Tebow then something else, Tim Tebow then something else, and Tim Tebow then something else. When we beat the Steelers were we on TV? No. I couldn’t even find a Baltimore Ravens highlight. I think that’s kinda the way it is around Baltimore. We don’t always get our respect but you gotta deal with it and go out there every week and just win football games.”

On the idea that there are hurdles that he needs to get past to gain peoples respect:

“It’s pretty funny. It really means nothing at the end of the day. We beat the Steelers. Just because Ben wasn’t playing doesn’t mean anything. All those games are just as important. To be honest with you, in the regular season since I’ve been here we’re .500 against those guys and if you were to ask people they would probably say we have just one win against them. It’s funny to hear that kind of thing. It just kinda goes with the territory. You just have to continue to take it, deal with it, and not really worry about it. As far as winning the big one we’ve won a lot of big games around here. The other thing is quarterbacks are not the only guy on the team to win football games. When we do win football games I don’t seem to think that a lot of people say ‘hey Joe Flacco won that football game.’ When we lose the football game that might be the case but obviously that’s not all reality. As a quarterback it’s your job to go in there and realize that and be the guy that goes out there and plays the same way every week and puts your team in position to win football games. That’s what I’ve been doing I think and that’s why we’re 10-3.”

Whether or not he pays attention to other QB’s around the league and what they are doing:

“I don’t necessarily pay attention and every week look at that and see that. I guess every now and then you do and just see kinda what they’re doing but I don’t watch the TV shows a lot. Like I said every now and then you see it and you hear it. You just do. You can’t help yourself a little bit.”

Whether or not he heard the criticism before the season started about him being the reason the Ravens didn’t have a better season:

“Last year we were a 12-4 football team. I mean we didn’t win the division because Pittsburgh had a tiebreaker and we won a playoff game. Yeah it’s not what everybody wants to hear and we didn’t win the Super Bowl but it was a pretty good year by our football team and I had a pretty good football season myself. You go home and all you want to do is not be criticized and it does seem like that. And hey my standpoint is I just think we’re disrespected as an organization when it comes to the media. We’re not a very big market, the bottom line is we don’t need a lot of help because we have a great fan-base every week and we win football games. We’re not a losing football team that needs to be out there in the media and be talked up like we are all-world. We are. We go out there and play and win football games. People usually look for a reason to put us down and where does that go to? It goes to the quarterback because we have a good defense. Teams want to see us run the ball and they want to see our defense win games. When we don’t do that and don’t win a football game where does the blame fall? Onto the quarterback. What are you gonna do? You’re the quarterback. You’re one of 32 guys that has the position that you have and it’s really not even that much because not everybody plays every week. Hey that’s why most of these guys, including myself get paid the way we do because we’re the guys that have to deal with it at the end of the day. When we don’t win they’re going to put it on us and that’s the bottom line.”

Whether or not he feels like his role in the offense has continued to evolve:

“The biggest thing for me is just the fact that when you come in as a rookie you don’t know a lot of guys, you’re a little bit uncomfortable, and you’re put in the starting spot and you’re just trying to play well. As you’re around a team, as you’re around guys you become more and more comfortable in your own skin and you become more and more comfortable to voice your opinion. Now we have a lot of young guys on the team so you have to do that. Before we were a pretty veteran offense and a pretty veteran team and a lot of those guys have developed those skills ten plus years in the NFL. It’s not my job to come in here and tell them to change something or something like that but it is my job to kinda get these young guys up to speed and mold them into the kind of player that I want them to be and they want to be. I think I’m able to be more comfortable in my own skin and voice my opinion a little bit more.”

Here’s the video…

What do you think?

7 Comments For This Post

Re the Tebow thing and the Ravens getting respect (or is it attention?) around the NFL: Most Power Rankings have the Ravens as the #2 or #3 team in the league. Listen to sports radio across the country and the majority of the sports show hosts think that the Ravens are one of the only teams that might be able to derail the Packers’ train ride to perfection. Most writers have already penciled Mr. Suggs in as the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Ray Rice is generally viewed as one of the top offesnive players in the league. After the Ravens crushed the Steelers in week 1, they were on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Tebow gets lots of attention because what he is doing is news. He has taken a crappy team that started the year 1-4 to an 8-5 record, in position to win the division, with 3 OT victories.

Flacco has taken a team that was 12-4 last year, has been in the playoffs 3 straight years, is a perrenial playoff contender, to 10-3 and in position to be a high seed in the playoffs. Ho-hum. What else is new?

He’s right though… I moved to the US in 2002, and have been here since (Raleigh/Durham area the entire time). I quickly became a football fan; just a general NFL fan despite not having a team. I understand that the Cowboys, the rest of the NFC East teams and a couple others are always gonna grab a chunk of the attention, but it has always seemed to me that the Ravens more so than others have almost never been talked about in the media, particularly for a team that’s almost always competitive. (And I mean the national media, not just the local stuff that’s obviously gonna be Panther-centric).

I don’t know why that is…. I’m not even sure if its just the fact that its a team predicated on playing good D – which many fans don’t seem to find exciting for whatever reason – as I’ve seen other teams garner a lot more attention while also lacking a flashy offense

Attention is respect..you make it seem like we should be grateful that the sports media is acknowledging the reality of the standings…isn’t that their job? Not everybody can be an analyst, some have to report what is actually happening. Ho hum? how many head coach/quarterback combos have done so and with such consistency…there is your bi-line. Tebow will fall once he plays real defenses, especially outside of the pitiful division they are in, face it the Broncos are STill a crappy team in a crappy division.

To Mr. Lurz: No, I make it seem that Ravens fans should appreciate the fact that they have a consistently competitive team and that it is not news when they are at or near the top of the standings most years. I would view this as a good thing. Why were Buffalo and Detroit making headlines the first 5-6 weeks of the season? Maybe because they were winning, which is not something people are use to. The Colts are news because they are going in the opposite direction. And I meant Ho hum as in, “yeah were winning, what else is new?”

I am a Steelers fan and I am happy when the Steelers do not generate much news because it means they are doing what they usually do: win 10 games or so, make the playoffs, hopefully make it to the Super Bowl every few years.

Mr. Flacco and Ravens fans want attention? Start off next year going 2-6, then put on a mid-season surge to try to qualify for the playoffs. The Ravens will get all the attention they can handle, as in “What’s wrong with the Ravens?” Of course, winning the Super Bowl will do it, too.

I am no defender of Tebow or the Broncos. However, I do find their current journey interesting, more interesting than the story of a perennial playoff contender (Ravens, Steelers, Patriots, etc) preparing to lock up yet another playoff berth.

I believe that we are not talked about that much nationally is we don’t draw attention to ourselves by being **sholes OFF the field. Our stats speak for themselves. Locally we aways hear about Ray Rice T-Sizzle, Lewis just to name few-oh even Stover has come back to live in B-more, we hear about the charity events they host, the kids they help we don’t have the players that drive drunk, shoot themselves etc. I thinkm if they did the rest of the team of brothers would be all over them………….